Happy 30th anniversary to the two legendary concerts at Wembley (11 and 12 July 1986). Those events will always be part of our lives. Thanks to the Saturday concert, broadcast by the Italian TV in June 1992, I began to know and love Queen. I'm sure a lot of us have melted dozens of VHSs, CDs and DVDs because of the exaggerated listens...

well I was at the Saturday show and it was pretty cool to be in Wembley Stadium for starters. It was better that the Newcastle gig and the Manchester gig but not a patch on the Knebworth one. I must get a copy of the Friday show. I have to say that the tour generally didn't float my boat compared to previous ones but I ended 4 shows by pure chance but that's another story

I think that's very true. Whether it was their 'best' or most complete show is another story. What they did do was create a very 'polished' set that is the norm now for most large bands. It was maybe the forerunner to a lot of gigs that came later I don't know but it did feel like it was very 'grown up' and deliberate. Compared to the Works tour that was a bit chaotic (but great of course) it was streets ahead in that regard.

Apparently, the sound the band get to hear on stage is REALLY important to getting the sound the audience get to hear, right.

On the Magic Tour, Clair Brothers Audio, the company who looked after the monitors, and front of house sound, came up with what was described as a revolutionary new system. I think before this time, you had various delays between what you were playing, and what was coming out of your on-stage monitors.

What is left of your dream?Just the words on your stone.A man who learnt how to teach,But forgot how to learn.

Kes wrote:Apparently, the sound the band get to hear on stage is REALLY important to getting the sound the audience get to hear, right.

On the Magic Tour, Clair Brothers Audio, the company who looked after the monitors, and front of house sound, came up with what was described as a revolutionary new system. I think before this time, you had various delays between what you were playing, and what was coming out of your on-stage monitors.

The PA they used on the Magic tour was a Clair Brothers rig. It used S4 4 way speaker cabinets which had been the standard Clair speaker system since 1978/79. Both U2 and Springsreen used the same rig and both Micheal Jackson and Madonna also used it, amounts many other bands. In 1978 when it was designed it was revolutionary in as much as it used square speaker boxes which contained 4x10 inch mids 2x high frequency horns 2x18 inch Bass and and sub Bass port. The system was designed to stack or fly very neatly depending on use.

Queen used Clair brothers from 1977 onwards and still do. The smallest version of the rig was used for the Crazy Tour. Before the Crazy Tour The Moody Blues had toured with the same set of PA equipment.

On the Hot Space tour UK/Europe most of the venues were indoor and they toured with the same rig they had used for the Game tour, for the out door shows they added a second set of PA speakers hired from, I believe Turbo sound to cover the increase in venue size.

During the 70's and 80's PA power Amps were usually Crown amplifiers. During The Magic tour and Freddie Tribute the speaker handling was believed to be 500,000 watts. If this figure is true It meant that the speakers were never driven hard to achieve a loud volume which would account for the hugely impressive clear powerful presence the sound had.

During the late 80's early 90's Clare Brothers developed the S4 long range cabinet designed just for out door use, it was used by Trip on tour with Micheal Jackson and then at the Freddie Tribute. The production design of both shows led to the PA being stacked in tall narrow stack 4 wide x 10 high (I could be wrong about the height could be 8 or 12). It produced an almost linearay configuration which is now the standard PA set up on most tours.

On the last few Queen tours the Clair Brothers i5 rig has been used, a modern state of the art PA also used by Roger Waters, Kiss, Fleetwood Mac and countless others. A number of other companies such as Skan and Britania Row supply great Linearay systems to touring bands

I was particularly on about the monitors though. These days people use inner ear headphones, so you don't need to worry about monitors. Prior to the introduction of these, a band needed to hear what they were playing, and so on-stage speaker systems used to create havoc with the delay circuit of going through the mixing desk and then back to the band, and areas of the stage where you had to watch for feedback if the vocalist wandered too close to a monitor, if it was turned up too loud. The stuff of nightmares for the sound men.

What is left of your dream?Just the words on your stone.A man who learnt how to teach,But forgot how to learn.

On the official mix for the Saturday performance the audience is far too quiet for me. Especially noticeable during I Want To Break Free where Freddie tells the crowd to sing a line and in the mix is greeted with near silence. Thought the visual editing was questionable too, with the shot switching far too often, especially during Radio Ga Ga where the audience participation hand-clapping may well have not happened as the camera switched between Brian, Freddie and Roger every 3 seconds whilst it was going on.

I was particularly on about the monitors though. These days people use inner ear headphones, so you don't need to worry about monitors. Prior to the introduction of these, a band needed to hear what they were playing, and so on-stage speaker systems used to create havoc with the delay circuit of going through the mixing desk and then back to the band, and areas of the stage where you had to watch for feedback if the vocalist wandered too close to a monitor, if it was turned up too loud. The stuff of nightmares for the sound men.

True, but there are still bands who use live monitors, Queen being one. In ear monitoring does mean the sound can be kept clean with very little overspill, but for some people it kills the live atmosphere and ambience. Queen were probably not an easy band to mix as Brian relied on his AC30's being ran at full volume to obtain that natural saturation his sound uses for louder/rockier parts. Add to this that Freddie liked loud piano monitoring which had to be close to his vocal mic and Roger needing quit loud fold back because of his position relative to the guitar backline.

They still play without in ears, but Brian's back line is now turned to face side ways and has a screen between it and the drums, meaning that onstage volume isn't quite what it used to be. In the current line up there is a second monitor engineer who works for Adam and just mixes stage vocals. I believe Adam sometimes uses in ears.

On big stages in big venues it takes getting used to, because if your not using in ear monitors the sound on stage has to be mixed loud enough for you to hear, but not too loud that it messes the overall quality, it's important for the FOH guy to have fairly clean inputs from all the onstage mics/instruments. Because of this there has to be a balance on stage between hearing yourself, hearing the other members of the band and also being aware of the out front sound filling the venue too.

Tori Amos once said that sitting at her piano the monitor sound is anything but pleasurable but it's made up of what she needs to hear and it's very different to what the audience hears.

You mentioned delay towers at big gigs. Yes these are set up and designed to feed sound to the audience further back and set to delay the sound in relation to what comes off the stage. The basic idea being that sound takes time to travel, therefore if you're half way back at Knebworth you will still hear the sound off the stage PA but at a lower volume, and slightly later than, the people at the front. The delay towers are timed so that you don't hear an out of sync echo from the front if you're at the back.

Modern Linaray systems are slightly different because they are very directional so rather than filling a big space with an overal big sprawling sound, it's now possible to have, usually four columns (at outdoor gigs) covering the mid area in front of the stage and then the outer areas toms reds the sides. Further back you'll find more PA columns providing "pockets of) sound for specific areas. It also means that the volume can be contained more easily within the venue and not effect people on the outside so much.